Even the high standards set by Maurice and Sterling failed to win
public favor. The crisis came about the middle of 1830 when Charles
Wentworth Dilke became "supreme editor," enlisted Lamb, George Darley,
Barry Cornwall and others on his staff, and reduced the price of the
_Athenaeum_ from eightpence to fourpence. The apparent folly of reducing
the price and increasing the expenses did not lead to the generally
prophesied collapse; this first experiment in modern methods resulted in
the rapid growth of the _Athenaeum's_ circulation, to the serious
detriment of the _Literary Gazette_. Jerdan tried to stem the tide by
publishing lampoons on the dullness of Dilke's paper; but when the
_Athenaeum_ was enlarged in 1835 from sixteen to twenty-four pages
Dilke's triumph was evident. The _Literary Gazette_ was compelled to
reduce its price to fourpence in its effort to regain the lost
subscriptions. Dilke labored earnestly to improve his paper and when, in
1846, he felt that it was established on a firm basis, he made Thomas
Kibble Hervey editor and devoted his own time to furthering his
journalistic enterprises.
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